214 U. S.

Argument for Defendants in Error.

v. Tyler, 8 Wall. 650, 664, 665; Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U. S. 45, 53.

A certificate of a court of last resort may serve to elucidate the determination whether a Federal question exists. Ill. Cent. R. R. Co. v. McKendree, 203 U. S. 514, 525.

Where on error to the Supreme Court of the State, the record shows a decision of the state court on a Federal question properly presented, and of which this court could take jurisdiction, and shows also the decision of the local question, the writ of error will not be dismissed on motion in advance of the hearing. The parties are entitled to be heard on the soundness of the decision below on the Federal question, on the sufficiency of that question to control the judgment in the whole case, and on the sufficiency of any other point decided to affirm the judgment, even if the Federal question was erroneously decided. Railroad Co. v. Maryland, 20 Wall. 643.

It is the duty of the state courts to decide Federal questions; if errors supervene, the remedy is open to the aggrieved party. Arkansas v. Kansas &c. Coal Co., 183 U. S. 185, 190; .Water Co. v. Defiance, 191 U. S. 184, 193; Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624.

Mr. James H. Neville and Mr. W. A. White for defendants in error:

The bare averment of a Federal question is not sufficient; there must at least be color or ground for such averment. Hamlin v. Western Land Co., 147 U. S. 531.

The only color, or reasons for the averment in the instant case are, first, that plaintiffs claimed under a sale by a United States marshal-a Federal officer. Secondly, that they derived their rights from the patentee of the United States.

The fact that a party to a suit is a receiver of a United States court does not necessarily create a Federal question authorizing a review of the case by the Supreme Court of the United States. Bausman v. Dixon, 173 U. S. 113; Lincoln Bank v. First Nat. Bank, 172 U. S. 425.

Argument for Defendants in Error.

214 U. S.

Nor does the fact that plaintiffs in error claim lands under a patentee of the United States create such Federal question. Blackburn v. Mining Co., 175 U. S. 571; McStay v. Friedman, 92 U. S. 723; Little York Gold Co. v. Keys, 96 U. S. 199; Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutler, 177 U. S. 505.

There was no question before the Supreme Court of Mississippi in this case as to the validity of the patent from the United States 'to James McLaren, nor as to the nature or ex- tent of the estate it conveyed. All parties to the suit concede that the patent vested a fee simple title in McLaren. The controversy is who now holds that title. Therefore the pleadings in this case wholly failed to state any question of a Federal nature which the Mississippi courts could have determined adversely to plaintiffs in error.

The determination by a state court of a Federal question adversely to the plaintiff in error will not sustain the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States, if another question not Federal was also raised and decided against him and the decision thereof is sufficient, notwithstanding the Federal question to sustain the judgment. Harrison v. Morton, 171 U. S. 38; Bacon v. Texas, 163 U. S. 207; Egan v. Hart, 165 U. S. 188; Castillo v. McConnico, 168 U. S. 674; Pierce v. Somerset R. R. Co., 171 U. S. 641; Chappel! Chemical Co. v. Sulphur Mines Co., 172 U. S. 465; Brooks v. Missouri, 124 U. S. 394; Union Nat. Bank v. Louisville R. R. Co., 163 U. S. 325.

It is not enough to give the Supreme Court of the United States jurisdiction over the judgment of a state court, for the record to show that a Federal queston was argued or presented to that court for decision. It must appear that such Federal question was necessary to the determination of the cause and that it was actually decided, or that the judgment could not have been given without deciding it. Moore v. Mississippi, 21 Wall. 636; Bolling v. Lersner, 91 U. S. 594; Brown v. Atwell, 92 U. S. 327; Citizens' Bank v. Board of Liquidation, 98 U. S. 140; Endowment Assn. v. Kansas, 120 U. S. 103; Marrow v. Brinkley, 129 U. S. 178; Church v. Kelsey, 121

U. S. 282; DeSaussure v. Gaillard, 127 U. S. 216; Blount v. Walker, 134 U. S. 607; Johnson v. Risk, 137 U. S. 300; Cook County v. Calumet Canal Co., 138 U. S. 635; Wood Mach. Co. v. Skinner, 139 U. S. 293.

Where one of the points decided in the Supreme Court of a State against the plaintiff in error would be a sufficient ground for the exercise of jurisdiction by the Supreme Court of the United States, yet if the decree is also based on another and distinct ground over which the National Court has no jurisdiction-as the statute of limitations of the State-the decree is beyond the revisory power of the Supreme Court of the United States. Rector v. Ashley, 6 Wall. 142.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

In entering the decree of December 23, 1905, the Chancellor manifestly proceeded on the decision of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, reported in 85 Mississippi, 802, as did the Supreme Court in affirming, October 22, 1906, the Chancellor's decree. To this decree the pending writ of error was allowed and issued September 18, 1907.

The contention is that, in determining the rights of plaintiffs in error, the Mississippi Supreme Court put a wrong construction upon the special act of Congress of February 16, 1838, referring to the time and place for the making of judicial sales in Mississippi, in that it held that the marshal's sale relied on as the foundation of title was made at the wrong place. But the Supreme Court made other and decisive rulings, as well as that in reference to the place of the alleged sale.

In the first place, that court held that the alleged return on the writ of fieri facias did not describe the lands in controversy, and therefore could not confer title, even though regular and valid. The act of Congress of February 16, 1839, did not attempt to define what is and what is not a good and valid description of real estate, or to make any rule by which a-purchaser at a marshal's sale could take possession of lands other

than those specifically described in the process. The question of a sufficient description was a question of general law.

In the second place, the court held that under the Mississippi statute authorizing suits of the character then before the court, plaintiffs in error had not deraigned a title to the lands in controversy, which, under the Mississippi statute under which the suit was instituted, was a fatal objection to the bill.

In the third place, the court held that the claim of plaintiffs in error was barred by the Mississippi statute of limitations, in that it failed to show possession by the plaintiffs, or their ancestor, during the sixty-four years that intervened between the marshal's sale and the bringing of the suit, and did not, as required by the rules of practice in courts of equity in Mississippi, show that it was the defendants or those in privity with them who had fraudulently concealed from plaintiffs the evidence of their claim.

It is true that the Supreme Court of Mississippi in the subsequent case of Kennedy v. Sanders, 90 Mississippi, 524, decided May 20, 1907, overruled the ruling in Jones v. Rogers, applying the ten-year statute of limitations, and quoting what the court then observed in that regard, said that "this announcement was not necessary to the decision in Jones v. Rogers, for the court had already held that the complainants in that case had deraigned no title." And it will have been perceived that this writ of error runs to the judgment of the Supreme Court of October 22, 1906.

The result is, therefore, that this writ of error comes within the rule that where the disposition of a Federal question was not necessary to the determination of the cause and the judgment is based on a distinct ground or grounds broad enough to sustain it, over which this court has no jurisdiction, the writ of error cannot be maintained.

Writ of error dismissed.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE took no part in the consideration and disposition of this case.

214 U.S.

Statement of the Case.

STATE OF WASHINGTON v. STATE OF OREGON.

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING.

No. 3, Original. Petition filed March 8, 1909.-Decided May 24, 1909.

Washington v. Oregon, 211 U. S. 127, reaffirmed on rehearing. Although the volume of water and depth of a channel have constantly diminished, if it all results from process of accretion, or, as in this case, possibly from jetties constructed by governmental authority, that channel still remains the boundary line, the precise line of separation being the varying center thereof.

The settlement of boundaries is generally attended with difficulties and it is wise for adjacent States to adjust their boundaries by boundary commissions and agreements as has been done with the consent of Congress in several instances.

THE facts, which involve the boundary between the States of Washington and Oregon as the same was determined by this court in this action, 211 U. S. 127, are stated in the opinion.

The State of Washington filed a petition for a rehearing herein, upon the following points:

I. The court erred in finding and holding that the present ship channel at the entrance to the Columbia River was the old south channel.

II. The court erred in finding and holding that the former north channel still subsisted to the northward of Sand Island, and that the boundary between the States of Washington and Oregon was to the northward of said Sand Island.

III. The court erred in not finding and holding that the present single channel at the entrance to the mouth of the Columbia River was as much the former north channel of the entrance to said river as it was the former south channel, and in not giving effect as a matter of law to the said combined. single channel as the boundary between the two States.

IV. The court erred in finding and holding that the Columbia